Midwest Midsummer

Cucurbitaceae is the gourd family consisting of many of the mid-late summer vegetables we collectively appreciate in the midwest. Cucumbers, Zucchini, Squashes, Pumpkins, and Melons are all family members with vines requiring a trellis or structure to climb onto, or plenty of ground space to creep and travel about. If you’ve personally grown any members of this tropical family, you’ll know these vines produce abundant fruit this time of year leading to prolific harvests, to be reflected in your week 10 CSA boxes.

For our tenth CSA box of 2021, we’ll continue to share a traditional midwest summer harvest including more of the following crops:

Cherry Tomatoes and funky heirloom varieties as they’re ripe and available, Zucchini and Yellow Squash, Green, Purple, & Dragon Tongue bush beans, Mild Green Peppers, Hot Peppers including Jalapeno, Hungarian Hots, & Anaheims, more Cucumbers, Fresh Onions, Herbs as available, Eggs, and Flowers. We have more wild blackberries to share!

We grow both Summer Squash and Winter Squash. Our Courgettes (zucchini) and Yellow Squashes are examples of summer squashes. Winter Squashes on our farm include Butternuts, Spaghetti Squash, and hopefully some Pumpkins. Our first Butternut babies have just fruited this week!

Simply defined, summer squashes need to be eaten in the summer because they don’t have the long term storage capabilities of a winter squash. Because they’re so prolific, but don’t have the thick rind that allows them to maintain freshness beyond the summer months, summer squashes can take some effort and creativity to fully utilize. This week, consider casseroles, boats, pizzas, kebobs, and breads. If you’re ambitious, now’s a good time to think about getting into pickling and canning if you haven’t already. More simply, if you sense your Zucchini is getting a bit rubbery, the easiest thing to do is quickly shred and grate the squash, form it into a ball to squeeze out its excess water using a towel, cheesecloth, our your bare hands, and freeze it in a sealed plastic bag for winter bread making.

Please don’t hesitate to share your ideas and creative arrangements with the CSA!

We are still patiently waiting on ears of sweet corn to appropriately sweeten and swell, but it’s happening.

Field tomatoes are taking their time to ripen as well. Last week, we were able to distribute a few heirlooms to our Sunday members. This week, we hope to get some out to Wednesday folks. We have no shortage or ripe cherry tomatoes, but as has been mentioned before, our full size field tomatoes are having a tough season.

We hope everyone enjoyed our wild blackberries last week and there are more on the way!

Though this whole garden project requires a lot of focus on single season, annual crops, we really like the idea of developing a property with perennial, permacultural properties as well. Our maintenance and admiration of our wild blackberry patches is an example of this appreciation.

Someday, we hope to have native trees and bushes with edible fruits thriving throughout our property, providing biodiversity and low maintenance simple harvests. For now, as long as our humble patch of wild fruits provide, we will work to harvest and share what we can.

“Dragon Tongue" bush beans should be available for everyone this week. These are waxier beans that can get big and long pretty quickly. They cook well just like our other green beans, but are also a great option to be used in pickling dilly bean recipes. They sure look cool preserved in a jar as well.

This week’s box will look very much like last week’s- another reminder of the seasonality of CSA participation. As we collectively experience and benefit from the short seasons of many of these familiar fresh produce varieties all grown right here in central Ohio, let us also be reminded that these are traditionally available year-round in grocery stores, and subsequently reflect on what that persistent availability means regarding our popular national food supply chain.

When we see a Zucchini in the produce section in December, let’s remember this time of year and ask: “Who grew this? How well were they paid? Where did this come from and how did it get here?”

For now, let’s all eat fresh summer squash until we’re sick of it and wouldn’t want any more until next summer anyway!

Egg production continues to go up and down each week due to a number of common variables. We’re doing what we can to make our shares as consistent as possible. Thanks for your patience if you’ve received more or less of an egg share than you could use.

We’re doing what we can to keep everyone happy, healthy, and provided for, including our hens. We really appreciate your feedback, flexibility, and support this summer.

Thanks again shareholders! We are grateful. Enjoy this final week of July 2021!

Erin & David